Toledo nonprofit Food for Thought is hosting the second annual Jam City at the Secor Ballroom, 425 Jefferson Ave., from 6-9 p.m. May 22. Tickets are $30.

At Jam City, the classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich is given a variety of unique makeovers by some of Toledo’s top chefs to raise money to feed Toledoans in need.

Food for Thought started with a free sack lunch program, and quickly expanded to encompass an Oregon food pantry as well as two mobile pantries. Chief Thought Officer Sam Melden explained that last year they decided to try out a new idea.

“We said, ‘What if we get a bunch of chefs together and they put their spin on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich?’” Melden said. “The idea was born, and we ran with it.”

And so, Jam City was launched. Twelve local restaurants were involved, and the event nearly reached its goal of raising $10,000.

“Our event sold out online before the doors even opened,” Melden said.

For its second year, Jam City boasts offerings from 16 restaurants and bars, ranging from classic American fare to Asian fusion, Mexican and Italian.

A new dessert category will be featured, as well.

Melden said the diversity offers tasters a unique experience that goes well beyond the traditional PB&J.

“[For example], last year, El Tipico did a habanero peanut butter salsa, and it was just amazing.”

In addition to the tasting, two raffle drawings will take place. Winners will receive a $50 gift card from each restaurant involved with Jam City, an $800 value. Tickets for the raffle are $10, and may be purchased from the Food for Thought website. Attendance at Jam City is not required to win.

Melden added that live music is also one of the things that makes Jam City a great time.

“A lot of people ask, ‘Who is Ted?’” said Will Lucas, curator of the Sept. 19 event, which will feature 23 speakers on topics ranging from art, music, science, business, politics and more.

TEDx events are local talks based on the global conference series TED, which stands for technology, entertainment and design. Its slogan is “Ideas worth spreading.”

“We were looking for people who not only have good ideas or a perspective on how to reimagine Toledo, but are actually doing something,” Lucas said.

Lucas, who also curated Toledo’s inaugural TEDx event last year, said the idea is to “bolster our level of thinking” by bringing together people who don’t typically get to interact.

“It’s an opportunity to show people something outside of their box,” Lucas said. “There will be people who would never have had the opportunity to sit next to each other. That’s what I’m most excited about.”

Last year’s TEDxToledo sold out and Lucas expects this year’s event to as well. It’s set for 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 19 at One SeaGate (the Fifth Third Bank building). Tickets are $75.

“We still hear ripples of positive feedback from last year’s event from people who said it changed their whole perspective on Toledo, even people who have been here for a long time,” Lucas said.

The title of this year’s event is reIMAGINE. Each speaker will have the stage for eight to 18 minutes.

“We want to reimagine what Toledo is,” Lucas said. “Historically we’ve been a manufacturing hub, which has kind of left over the past 10 years. We’re in the middle ground between what we were and what we could be. There’s a large group that wants to be what we were and a large group that wants to be what we could be. What is our history and how can we build on that for the future of Toledo?”

Speakers

An opportunity to think about the direction Northwest Ohio is headed is why City of Oregon Administrator Michael Beazley is most excited to speak at TEDxToledo.

“One of the things I want to really emphasize is there’s not one solution,” Beazley said. “We need to try a lot of things to move a community forward. The notion that we can just find that one thing and all our problems can be solved, I don’t think it’s realistic for most places.”

Mike Osswald, vice president of experience innovation at Hanson Inc., said his TEDx talk will focus on “making sense of marketing in the digital age.”

“All these rapid changes we’re seeing in technology, even just in the last three to four years of consumer electronics, websites and apps, the pace of it is like never before and it’s changing how people live and make decisions about what to buy and how they want to interact with companies,” Osswald said. “For marketers trying to keep up with all the new stuff, it’s like drinking out of a fire hose. It’s almost impossible. [But] as much as things have changed, a lot of it is the same. I want people who are in business to realize they know more than they think they do.”

Osswald spoke at a TEDx event hosted by Bowling Green State University in 2011.

“When you put all those different disciplines together in a room, synergy happens. It really creates new ideas and opportunities for all the different people involved,” Osswald said. “Creativity often comes when you’re not thinking directly at something but thinking around it, and that’s what TEDx does.”

Artist Jefferson Nelson said he plans to discuss the utopian ideal of choosing “autonomy over profit,” with the goal of getting his listeners to think about the value in doing the things they don’t get paid for.

“My biggest goal is to get people to do the things they are passionate about and not just think about making money,” said Nelson, who sculpts, draws, paints and works on art installations. “In an ideal world, I’d basically take making money out of the equation for everyone and have us function in a way that’s about the greater good.”

FREEPRETEDX

Nelson is partnering with a few other TEDxToledo presenters, including Toledo Museum of Art Director Brian Kennedy, Launch Pad Cooperative Co-director Crystal Phelps, musician Dean Tartaglia, architect Paul Sullivan and Instagrammer Ben Morales, to offer their talks for free at 5 p.m. Sept. 15 at the Ottawa Tavern, 1817 Adams St. For more information, check out FREEPRETEDX on Facebook.

“It’s a chance for us to practice and also a less formal chance for people who can’t afford the tickets to come out and hear a few of the talks,” Nelson said.

For the past two years, Morales has collected historical Toledo photographs and photographed them in front of the modern-day locations. He calls the series Toledo Rephotography.

“It was the juxtaposition of old and new that really grabbed me,” Morales said. “Hopefully learning and connecting to the past will enable people to take ownership of the community and be involved in it, therefore helping to control its future path.”

“The wine business isn’t something you think about being in Toledo,” Mahler said. “I hope [attendees] realize that Toledo’s unique limitations are no greater than any other city’s unique limitations and if you are smart and assertive about it you can figure out how to make any place work for you and turn what could be a perceived negative into something you can use to your advantage.”

Before Mahler founded Ampelography in 2009, he listened to a lot of TED talks.

“I really got inspired,” Mahler said. “It helped me recalibrate the way I thought about business and how to build an enthusiastic community for a product. Over the years, every time I had a question I’ve gone back to it.”

Morales and others said they are excited to hear the other speakers.

“I love to watch people talk about stuff they are passionate about,” Morales said. “Plus, I like that they are short and sweet. They get right to the meat of the talk, not a drawn-out lecture.”

Toledo’s Tartaglia living the dream with The Sights

On May 18, 21-year-old Toledo native Dean Tartaglia finished his collegiate career at Ohio University. Two days later, he flew out to Los Angeles to begin touring as the saxophonist for Detroit’s heavy soul outfit The Sights, which opens for Tenacious D on a number of tour dates this summer.

“It’s been mind-blowing, man,” Tartaglia said on the road from Billings, Mont. “I think the word I’ve used the most when I’ve been trying to explain it to people is that everything is just kind of surreal.”

Tartaglia, a 2008 St. Francis de Sales grad, majored in music performance with a minor in jazz studies at OU. Touring with The Sights in support of Tenacious D is, for him, the latest step in a musical journey that first began at age 6, when his parents enrolled him in piano lessons.

“I feel lucky,” Tartaglia said. “I’ve always felt that luck is kind of like talent and hard work and success and all that stuff just kind of lining up for no better reason than it just happens.”

Dean Tartaglia

Also the frontman for the self-proclaimed “nerd pop” rockers Mind Fish, a group he formed at OU with fellow St. Francis alum Steve Warstler, Tartaglia first got in touch with The Sights about a year-and-a-half-ago.

A friend of his was working at their merchandise, and Tartaglia joined him in Detroit while on winter break. After striking up a conversation with The Sights’ frontman Eddie Baranek and going to the band’s shows, Tartaglia eventually got The Sights to play a gig with Mind Fish.

“We booked them down to Athens, and they stayed with me in my place and we just hung out for most of the night,” Tartaglia said of The Sights. “At one point, [Baranek] just asked if I wanted to do a show with them.

“I said ‘Yes,’ and then I kind of haven’t really looked back since.”

Tartaglia was part of the recording for The Sights’ seventh effor,“Left Over Right,” which is scheduled for release June 19.

“I’m just lucky to be a part of this,” Tartaglia said. “I’m lucky that Eddie saw potential in my playing and my abilities as a performer, and it’s cool to be a sideman to a frontman who’s so talented. It’s pretty amazing.”

Tartaglia is no stranger to national touring acts; Mind Fish has played gigs with the likes of Fitz and The Tantrums, We Are The Fury and The Constellations over the years, Even so, being on the road with The Sights and Tenacious D has been unlike anything he’s experienced thus far.

“He walked through the door and I actually, like, I looked over and made eye contact and freaked out,” Tartaglia said of the first time he met Tenacious D’s Jack Black. “I like, looked away immediately because I’m like, ‘Aw, this is weird. This is weird.’”

Despite Tartaglia’s early nerves, Black turned out to be quite cordial to The Sights, a band he has been a fan of for nearly a decade. When The Sights played at the Sasquatch! Music Festival on Memorial Day Weekend, Black was front and center to watch the set.

“It wouldn’t feel right if I kind of felt like I had to watch my back or something like that or watch what I said, but he’s totally down-to-earth and supportive, too,” Tartaglia said of Black. “I think that’s the biggest thing.

“We didn’t know what to expect, if he’d be hanging around, but he’s there every night watching us and he’s really supportive.”

As for Mind Fish, the band has already been working on new material to follow up January’s “WATCHOUT!” and will perform at Ottawa Tavern on June 15. Tartaglia said the other members have been supportive of his touring with The Sights, adding that he will pick things back up with Mind Fish in the fall.

For now, he is enjoying this opportunity with The Sights.

“It’s like when you’re 14 or 13 and you want to start a band, and you have this idea of, like, being a rock star,” Tartaglia said. “And I’m not calling myself that because it’s not at all what I mean by this, but at certain points during the show on certain nights, it totally feels like you’re living out that dream you had when you were 14 years old.”